The Joke of Interleague Scheduling

I have a feeling Jim Leyland spoke for a lot of people this week when he dismissed the relevance and interest in interleague play. “I think this was something that was certainly a brilliant idea to start with,” said the Detroit manager, “but I think it has run its course. It’s not really doing what it was supposed to — there’s no rivalries for most of the teams.”

And even when there IS a so-called rivalry — Giants vs. A’s — it really isn’t. The Giants host the A’s this weekend in what invariably ranks with the most boring series of the season.

The interleague schedule certainly has its highlights, especially when any team gets the rare privilege of a visit to Yankee Stadium, Fenway Park or Wrigley Field, but the schedule is so patently unfair, it’s amazing the concept even exists.

Check out these discrepancies:

The Giants’ series at Detroit represents their only interleague road trip (Oakland doesn’t count). San Diego goes to Boston, Minnesota and Seattle.

The Giants play only four American League teams. Arizona plays six, with road trips to Detroit, Kansas City and Oakland.

While the Giants face Minnesota, Cleveland and Detroit from the A.L. Central, the Colorado Rockies have four series against that division and a trip to Yankee Stadium.

The Giants play 15 interleague games. Arizona plays 18, as does Oakland.

Tell me this stuff won’t be a bone of contention if a team gets knocked out of the postseason by a game or two.

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As we witnessed in the Vin Mazzaro affair, Ned Yost is the worst possible choice to be managing the Kansas City Royals. Yost was an insufferable hothead in Milwaukee, costing him his job, and he shouldn’t be anywhere near a KC team so rich in elite prospects.

In case you missed it, Yost kept Mazzaro (the former A’s starter) in the ballgame for the entirety of a 10-run fourth inning, then brought him back for the NEXT inning to allow four more runs. It became the worst pitching line in major-league history — 14 earned runs in 2 1/3 innings — and it never should have reached that point.

Yost said he was trying to protect his bullpen, then put on his hard-ass military face and told the press, “You deal with it, you don’t cry about it, you don’t go home and hang your head. You go do what you do best, and that’s go pitch.”

Wrong. Not in that situation. Bring somebody else in — the third baseman, if you must. Don’t leave someone out there to endure what could be a career-altering embarrassment. Oh, and one other thing: Mazzaro was sent to the minors the next day. There’s an organization in desperate need of leadership.

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You undoubtedly heard about Bryce Harper, the Washington Nationals’ No. 1 draft choice, as he carved out a youthful legend in high-school and junior-college ball. He made the cover of Sports Illustrated and was described by many scouts as the best hitting prospect they’d ever seen. Well, it turns out he did all of that “blind as a bat,” as his eye doctor told him. It was only last month that Harper was fitted with a pair of contact lenses, “and it’s like I’m seeing in HD,” he told the Washington Post.

Harper said he tried contact lenses briefly a few years ago, “but they gave me headaches really bad. I just got by without them.” But then came a visit to the Nationals’ team optometrist, who told him, “I don’t know how you ever hit before. You have some the worst eyesight I’ve ever seen.”

At last check, Harper was hitting .366 with 9 homers and 31 RBIs in 37 games for low-Class A Hagerstown of the South Atlantic League. He’s still just 18, and the Nationals insist they will resist the temptation to call him up to the big leagues this year.

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3-DOTTING: Speaking of managers who shouldn’t be working anywhere in the big leagues, the Seattle Mariners still have Eric Wedge, a man wound much too tight for the job, especially with a second-rate team. The Mariners gave themselves a chance to win, or at least compete, with the release of Milton Bradley. That properly erased the inconceivably lame decision to sign Bradley in the first place. But they need someone else in charge of Michael Pineda, Felix Hernandez, Justin Smoak and the rest of a young roster built to contend before long . . . What a pathetic scene at Dodger Stadium Wednesday night: world champion Giants in town, thousands of empty seats, every section looking bleak and barren. On the air, Mike Krukow and Duane Kuiper said they couldn’t recall seeing the place so vacant, but that’s Frank McCourt‘s ghost-town organization, losing fans by the thousands . . . Light-hearted moment of the year: Kyle Lohse, the St. Louis Cardinals’ pitcher, doing a dead-on Tony La Russa imitation while his manager was sidelined with a case of shingles. It was a risky move (really backfires if not executed correctly), but Lohse totally nailed La Russa as he went out for the exchange of lineup cards of home plate. The walk, the wig, the No. 10 jersey, the mannerisms — his teammates were in hysterics. Says a lot for the spirit of that team . . . Nice to see former Stanford pitcher Drew Storen becoming a mainstay in the Washington bullpen, posting an 0.38 ERA with a recent streak of 20 consecutive scoreless innings. The Nationals also have reliever Henry Rodriguez, once property of the A’s, and Rodriguez still throws 100-mph fastballs on his best days . . . Speaking of top-level heat, the Reds placed Cuban flamethrower Aroldis Chapman on the disabled list with shoulder inflammation after he posted these shocking numbers over four outings: 1 1/3 innings, two hits, 10 earned runs, 12 walks. Chapman made headlines rather quickly after defecting from his native Cuba, and the Reds are fearful of his emotional response if they were to send him to the minor leagues. He was pitching out of the bullpen (middle relief) in Cincinnati, and if his arm calms down, the Reds may decide to make him a starter.

I had the pleasure of watching the great Harmon Killebrew in the 1965 World Series at Dodger Stadium, including his homer off Don Drysdale in Game 4. He was a classic country hacker of the highest order, and from 1963 to 1968 — a truly golden period featuring some of the greatest sluggers in history — Killebrew and Willie Mays led the majors with 219 home runs . . . The mind drifts back to so many great American Leaguers in the Sixties, All-Star lineups featuring the likes of Mickey Mantle, Rocky Colavito, Al Kaline, Nellie Fox, Luis Aparicio, Bobby Richardson, Brooks Robinson, Carl Yastrzemski and Tony Oliva. Killebrew absolutely belonged in that company, starting the 1964 All-Star game in left field and the 1965, ’67 and ’68 games at first base . . . My favorite Killebrew stat: Over a 22-season career featuring 573 home runs, he never executed a sacrifice bunt. The very notion seemed pointless.